Quite often, one encounters people who live a “scientific” life. They have learned certain scientific precepts (really, “opinions”) at the feet of other scientists, and they have learned to use a scientific jargon that colors their thinking. It is amazing how often these scientists pretend that somehow their thinking is superior to that of people who live an unscientific life because of their facility with those precepts and with that scientific jargon. Yet, they are surely a deluded people.
Take the case of religious revelation: scientists reject this out of hand because it lacks a grounding in the material world. They will insist that one cannot believe in such things because there is no material basis for it. They then further complicate this difficulty by arguing that logic must rule where materiality is absent. Their argument, in its simplest form, goes something like this: “If I can’t see it, then it doesn’t exist.” That is really another way of saying that they do not find the evidence of revelation to be credible because it lacks a certain type of materiality.
Ah, yes. Sweet materiality. It is such a dangerous thing, this materiality. For, if one insists upon grounding everything in materiality, eventually, one runs into sustained and intractable contradictions. The scientist rejects the biblical story of creation, for example, because it does not accord with his material view of nature. It seems fanciful and absurd to him. But more importantly, the biblical story of creation is rejected, because it lacks the kind of evidence that the scientists seeks in marshaling his arguments. It is based on revelation rather than in material nature. Of course, the scientist rejects that kind of evidence because it is a based on, well, revelation, instead of “science.”
Then, the scientist does a very curious thing. He explains the world on the basis of logic. That the world exists is really beyond question. The scientist’s problem is to explain that existence, and he rejects the revelation from biblical sources. Therefore he has to explain the existence of the world strictly in terms of materiality. But if the world is all there is (to paraphrase Wittgenstein), then one cannot look for explanations beyond the material world. So, at that point, logic takes over. The most reasonable explanation for the existence (or the creation of the world) is sought by the scientist because there is no experiment any scientist could conduct that would demonstrate the formation of the material world. Materiality, per se, is beyond experimental manipulation. The only thing left is logic, and the scientist gives us his best reason for the existence of things.
But isn’t that a very curious thing? Instead of experimentation, the scientist gives us a reasonable narration; instead of facts, he gives us reasons; and, instead of proofs, he gives us opinions. Funny thing for a scientist to do, that, eh? Where is his scientific method? Where is his epistemological integrity? How can he reject revelation with such ease, and then present us with nothing as an explanation for the world, and still consider what he’s doing to be science? You don’t want the messiness of creation by God to explain the existence of the world? Okay. Well, why not try the Big Bang Theory? Yeah, let’s run with that. We’ll take an event that occurred say fifteen, twenty, thirty billion years ago. Pick your own favorite starting point. I won’t quibble over half a dozen billion years. It happened so far in the past that nobody can call you a liar if you miss it by, say, one or two billion years. That’s always the very best strategy: have a scientific theory about something that cannot be checked by other people. Then supply a number of unassailable principles, such as, the color of light receding from the viewer (“red shift”), to supply the logical underpinnings for the explanation of that creation. Play with the theory until it sounds very logical and reasonable, and then presented to the public as science.
Excuse me, but how is that any more “scientific” than foisting any myth upon an unsuspecting public? Why would a scientist’s hollow reverberations of his own mind be more “scientific” than the evidence supplied by the Bible - or any other evidence for that matter? Why does the opinion of a man wearing a white laboratory coat trump that of a theologian with Holy Scripture in his hands?
Take the case of religious revelation: scientists reject this out of hand because it lacks a grounding in the material world. They will insist that one cannot believe in such things because there is no material basis for it. They then further complicate this difficulty by arguing that logic must rule where materiality is absent. Their argument, in its simplest form, goes something like this: “If I can’t see it, then it doesn’t exist.” That is really another way of saying that they do not find the evidence of revelation to be credible because it lacks a certain type of materiality.
Ah, yes. Sweet materiality. It is such a dangerous thing, this materiality. For, if one insists upon grounding everything in materiality, eventually, one runs into sustained and intractable contradictions. The scientist rejects the biblical story of creation, for example, because it does not accord with his material view of nature. It seems fanciful and absurd to him. But more importantly, the biblical story of creation is rejected, because it lacks the kind of evidence that the scientists seeks in marshaling his arguments. It is based on revelation rather than in material nature. Of course, the scientist rejects that kind of evidence because it is a based on, well, revelation, instead of “science.”
Then, the scientist does a very curious thing. He explains the world on the basis of logic. That the world exists is really beyond question. The scientist’s problem is to explain that existence, and he rejects the revelation from biblical sources. Therefore he has to explain the existence of the world strictly in terms of materiality. But if the world is all there is (to paraphrase Wittgenstein), then one cannot look for explanations beyond the material world. So, at that point, logic takes over. The most reasonable explanation for the existence (or the creation of the world) is sought by the scientist because there is no experiment any scientist could conduct that would demonstrate the formation of the material world. Materiality, per se, is beyond experimental manipulation. The only thing left is logic, and the scientist gives us his best reason for the existence of things.
But isn’t that a very curious thing? Instead of experimentation, the scientist gives us a reasonable narration; instead of facts, he gives us reasons; and, instead of proofs, he gives us opinions. Funny thing for a scientist to do, that, eh? Where is his scientific method? Where is his epistemological integrity? How can he reject revelation with such ease, and then present us with nothing as an explanation for the world, and still consider what he’s doing to be science? You don’t want the messiness of creation by God to explain the existence of the world? Okay. Well, why not try the Big Bang Theory? Yeah, let’s run with that. We’ll take an event that occurred say fifteen, twenty, thirty billion years ago. Pick your own favorite starting point. I won’t quibble over half a dozen billion years. It happened so far in the past that nobody can call you a liar if you miss it by, say, one or two billion years. That’s always the very best strategy: have a scientific theory about something that cannot be checked by other people. Then supply a number of unassailable principles, such as, the color of light receding from the viewer (“red shift”), to supply the logical underpinnings for the explanation of that creation. Play with the theory until it sounds very logical and reasonable, and then presented to the public as science.
Excuse me, but how is that any more “scientific” than foisting any myth upon an unsuspecting public? Why would a scientist’s hollow reverberations of his own mind be more “scientific” than the evidence supplied by the Bible - or any other evidence for that matter? Why does the opinion of a man wearing a white laboratory coat trump that of a theologian with Holy Scripture in his hands?
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